Today we’d like to introduce you to Jonathan Sloan.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Jonathan. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I was working at another gym as a personal trainer, and the gyms membership base had been declining over the past few months. The owner of the gym decided to cut the compensation plan of the personal trainers to make up for the revenue the gym was missing. The pay cut made it to where I wasn’t making enough money to pay all bills every month anymore. After complaining to some of my clients about my situation, some of them actually offered to invest in me starting my own gym. The thought hadn’t really ever occurred to me, but the fact that I had two clients offer to invest real money had me thinking differently.
I decided to open up my own spot and secured a loan from family, who also to my surprise, didn’t hesitate to invest. Three weeks after receiving my pay cut, I literally opened the doors to my studio. I worked like crazy for 3 weeks and had a good friend (and still a current client) help me put some of the equipment together. I worked as a bouncer in uptown on the weekends to make enough money to live while I built my studio to where it is now. I will have been open for 4 years this April! I currently have 1 employee and am looking to hire another ASAP!
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Making enough money to cover all my bills was hard at first. I was lucky that I could lean on my family to help support me. But even with my family loaning me extra money when I really needed it, I still had to work 2-4 nights a week as a bouncer. My client’s schedule is really spread out throughout the day. People work with trainers when they aren’t working. My first client is usually at 5:30 AM and I used to not finish with my last client of the day till 8 PM during the weekdays, on top of having clients spread out during the day.
So finding a part-time job during the day that fit those hours wasn’t happening. So that’s why I went with being a bouncer, it was a night job. Having those early mornings during the week on top of having a night job Thursday-Sunday nights from 10PM-3:30/4ish AM was rough. I actually lost about 20 lbs my first three months working as a bouncer and got really sick for a week or so. I wasn’t getting any sleep, didn’t have the time or the energy to workout, wasn’t eating enough. I had to tell my manager that I needed to cut down to just Friday-Sunday nights.
My last few months there I only worked Fridays and Saturdays. And obviously, with all this work, you don’t have time for a social life. But looking back on it, I’ve surprised myself, and I’m proud of it.
Please tell us about Jonathan’s Private Training Studio, LLC.
We are a private training studio. There are no members in the studio, membership fees, or any other fees besides personal training. We specialize in movement. Our workout philosophy is to teach your body how to communicate. The easiest comparison in our philosophy is looking at the difference between a bodybuilder and a gymnast, let’s call these two athletes movers. If you compare the two movers, the life expectancy of a professional bodybuilder is actually less than 60 years old.
Compare that with a gymnast, or anybody that is a consistent practitioner of a total body movement, for example, a dancer, rock climber, parkour artist, etc., they are still independent and capable movers well past their 60’s! These movers that practice using their body in its entirety in the movement are healthier, smarter, and more capable humans throughout their life, especially in their later years. Our philosophy, our movement practice that we use with our clients teaches this. It teaches the body how to communicate; which greatly reduces the risk of injury, provides you with more range of motion, and yes, gives you the muscles you’ve been wanting to see in the mirror.
Our philosophy sets us apart because we are healing the body through movement, and also creating a deeper neural connection between the brain and movement. The aesthetics that people are wanting come as a result of that. We chase movement, which creates aesthetics. Rather than just chasing aesthetics, and being an incapable mover prone to injury.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
I can’t really say that I would’ve done it differently. But I should have had more of a vision for my business. My outlook at first was just that I was going to work as hard as I could to make sure I’d succeed. So I did everything myself, never delegating and spending tons of time researching and learning as much as possible. I would have worked smarter rather than harder if I had to go back, but I think that’s a lesson I needed.
Contact Info:
- Address: 939 West Jefferson Blvd. #105
- Website: www.jonathansloanfitness.com
- Phone: 2147797128
- Email: info@jonathansloanfitness.com
- Instagram: @jsloanfit
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Jonathansprivatetrainingstudio/
- Twitter: @jsloanfit
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/jonathans-private-training-studio-dallas
Image Credit:
Jennifer Crenshaw, Andre Jones
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